Arts & Entertainment

Best Electronic Band St. Louis 2005 - Femme Fatality

If Soft Cell had emerged during the electroclash age instead of in the new-wave era, it might have sounded something like Femme Fatality. The black-clad duo of Monanani Palermo and Octavia Leito spews robotic rhymes with the precision of a metronome, over throbbing beats cobbled together from "90s hip-hop and batcave-dwelling synth-punk. The live show is even more bananas, with films, hand-held lights and even audience participation -- i.e., random folks compelled to undress and dirty-dance onstage -- contributing to the debauched-discotheque atmosphere. Above all, however, Femme Fatality keeps people guessing about its intentions -- is the pair serious about its techno tricks, or is it all a cheeky ironic joke? After all, it takes a special band to cover EMF's cheeseball hit "Unbelievable" -- and still whip the crowd into an appreciative frenzy in the process.